3 Daft Monkeys

Few acts from Cornwall draw as widely on the world's folk and dance traditions as 3 Daft Monkeys. Tim Ashton, Athene Roberts, Rich Mulryne and Jamie Graham build their acoustic sound from fiddle, twelve-string guitar, bass, percussion and voices, and the material pulls in Celtic, Balkan and Romani influences alongside Latino rhythms, reggae, dub, punk rock and electronic dance. It is folk with its doors open.

Show of Hands invited them to play the main stage at the Eden Project, and they performed at the 2008 BBC Proms in St David's Hall, Cardiff. Festival dates have taken them from Glastonbury to Lorient in France and Folk Segovia in Spain. Through the 2000s they were a regular support act for The Levellers. When lockdowns shut the live circuit, they played more than sixty online "Cyberbusks" between March 2020 and June 2021, and Tim Ashton and Athene Roberts recorded a cover of the Beatles' "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" with Scott Doonican. Their albums run from Brouhaha in 2000 and Hubbadillia in 2004 through Of Stones and Bones in 2013 to Year of the Clown in 2017.